'Sunburn' By Laura Lippman & 5 Other New Books To Read This Week

It's hard to believe, but it's already time to start compiling books to add to your spring reading lists. Soon enough, the temperatures will be warm enough for reading in the park, at an outdoor cafe, or maybe just with the windows wide open to let in the fresh air. Luckily, there are six new books out this week to add to your TBR pile for the months to come.

For nonfiction lovers, three new books this week will certainly be of interest: Educated, a memoir about one woman's childhood spent without going to school and an adulthood spent trying to get the best education possible; Blue Nights, a detailed investigation of the drugs used to treat mental illness, as told by someone who has a very personal stake in the matter; What Are We Doing Here?, a gut-punch of an essay collection, written by one of literature's greatest living thinkers, Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson; and Eloquent Rage, a necessary, brave, and thoughtful examination of black female rage.

For fiction readers, two new books out this week should be on your radar: Sunburn, a modern crime noir that takes its inspiration from the work of James M. Cain, particularly The Postman Always Rings Twice; and Blood of a Thousand Stars, a fast-paced, heart-pounding young adult space opera that fans of all genres will enjoy.

So don't miss these six new books when compiling your reading list this week:

'Sunburn' by Laura Lippman

In this deliciously twisted novel from New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman, a mysterious woman leaves behind her husband and her child on a beach in Delaware and starts up a new life in a middle-of-nowhere town, taking up a waitressing job and striking up an affair with the equally enigmatic new cook. But, as quickly becomes apparent to the reader, both lovers are hiding a few not-inconsequential details about their past — and both know more about each other than they let on.

'Eloquent Rage' by Brittney Cooper

Black History Month may be coming to a close, but your education on black matters shouldn't be ending. In Eloquent Rage, Brittney Cooper deftly and honestly examines why black women are so enraged — and how that impacts individual women and the community as a whole.

'What Are We Doing Here?' by Marilynne Robinson

It's never a wise idea to sleep on Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson, and her latest essay collection is certainly no exception to that rule. In What Are We Doing Here?, Robinson explores the modern American political climate, both through the lens of the thinkers and leaders who built this country and through the lens of beauty and faith.

'Blue Dreams' by Lauren Slater

What role do psychotropic drugs play in the treatment of mental illness? It's a simple enough question, but the answer is remarkably difficult to pinpoint, as Lauren Slater explains in Blue Dreams. Slater, who has struggled with depression herself, tracks the success (or lack thereof) of a variety of treatments — everything from lithium to LSD — in an absorbing, accessible read about a disease that's still remarkably misunderstood.

'Educated' by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was raised by a survivalist father and midwife and herbalist mother in the mountains of Idaho, where she had neither birth certification nor telephone and certainly did not attend school. Despite this, she eventually made it to the Ivy League and Cambridge, and in this memoir, she tracks her unconventional journey in pursuit of an education and a life beyond what she was born into.

'Blood Of A Thousand Stars' by Rhoda Belleza

In the sequel to Empress of a Thousand Skies, Rhoda Belleza shoots her fans right back in the thick of an intergalactic revolution. With war on the horizon, four teens — the Empress, the Fugitive, the Princess, and the Madman —must figure out what role they play in the battle for the future of the universe.